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On the 10th of July, after handing over to the 5th Manchesters, the Battalion entrained for Mahamdiya. The curse was pronounced against it, "On thy flat feet shalt thou go and dust shalt thou eat"; and it did not entrain again until it left Ludd at the beginning of the journey to France nearly two years later.
The superhuman agility of the trolley's crew just succeeded in getting their vehicle off the line before the train reached it, but the R.T.O.'s office at Mahamdiya stank in official nostrils for many days. The line to Port Said, however, was a metre gauge one, laid down on the beach which runs as a narrow strip between the sea and the lagoons.
It need hardly be said that they felt as if they had done a hard day's work, and were already the victims of an excellent thirst before the march began. The Battalion moved straight back to Mahamdiya, starting at 2 p.m. and arriving at 7.15 p.m.
Little walking round the tiny transport donkey with the "Bint" up. Another worthy effort of the pioneers was the erection of a palatial hut when an officer's mess dinner was held, our first since leaving Mahamdiya. A move was made on the 29th when the battalion arrived in the Abbas sector, coming under the command of the G.O.C. 234th Brigade.
The journeys to and fro were naturally not devoid of incident. The leave parties marched up to Mahamdiya in the early morning, over some miles of bad going, and Headquarters are to be congratulated on the fact that no party of ours at any rate ever left on an empty stomach.
He therefore summoned Rice again, and said slowly, "Mahamdiya Katia never no more" accompanying the words with a gesture of violent negation. Suddenly the awful truth broke on Rice, and he set up a long and despairing howl, on which all the drivers left their charges, ran screaming to their household goods and began hastily to pack them into their bosoms.
At about the same moment a large ration train left Romani for Mahamdiya. They met about half-way, and the engine driver, whose career had not taught him a proper reverence for red tabs, blew his whistle and carried on.
We remained at Mahamdiya till August 26th, occupying the inner picket line at night, and training by day. On that date the Brigade moved to er Rabah, a large palm grove, a mile or so north of Katia, which it closely resembled.
It was pitched on a slope of sand less than a mile from the railway, and half a mile or so from the sea. The sea was the great feature of Mahamdiya. Its deep blueness rested the eye, wearied by the perpetual glare of the sand.
After skirting the inundations the line ran for some miles across almost flat desert, and then entered a country of sand hills, writhing and twisting among the tumbled ridges till it reached Romani. Here we passed on to a branch line which took us north to the coast. Our camp at Mahamdiya had been occupied by the Scottish Horse.
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